Email marketing is probably the most misunderstood kind of marketing out there. There are other ways to market your business but I’m here to break the email marketing myths with a few facts.

MYTH: Email Marketing is Annoying

FACT: 74% of active online adults prefer to receive their marketing messages through email rather than direct mail. There’s a common misconception among online marketers that most leads find marketing emails annoying.

MYTH: Targeting Leads Isn’t Really Necessary

FACT: Segmenting your contacts increases email click‐through rates by 16%. This means that by targeting your leads through individual personalized profiles you will increase your chances of getting people to not only check your emails but also of getting them to click through your links.

MYTH: Yeah, Messaging is Important But…

FACT: A well‐crafted marketing email increases your conversion rates. 66% of online consumers have bought something based on an email marketing message. 71% of people aged 45 to 54 made their purchasing decisions based on email marketing messages.

MYTH: I Need a Large List to Be Effective

FACT: Large mailing lists can distort your results. This is because you’ll be sending emails to lots of people that are never going to buy something from you. By simply deleting email addresses that haven’t engaged with your emails in the past 12 months can improve your delivery rates, click‐through rates, and conversion rates by 3% to 5%.

MYTH: Subject Lines Aren’t That Important

FACT: Subject lines are more important than you would imagine. Short subject lines (around 9 characters long or less) open rates can reach up to 58%. Personalized subject lines such as those that used the recipient’s name, were 22% more likely to be opened. 64% of recipients will open an email based on the subject line alone.

MYTH: Social Media Is Better Than Email Marketing

FACT: Email marketing is way more effective at acquiring new customers for your business than social media efforts. An email marketing campaign is 40 times more effective at customer acquisition than a Facebook or Twitter campaign. 72% of people favor promotional content through email over social media.

MYTH: Email Marketing Takes Too Much Time

FACT: Automation is taking over in the email marketing industry. Most email management tools are being used by about 82% of business-to‐business and business‐to‐customer companies. This has helped them increase their conversion rates by as much as 50%. Automated email marketing messages average 70.5% higher open rates and 152% higher clickthrough rates.

So What Does All This Mean?

FACT: It means that if you’re not using customized, targeted, interesting email marketing, you are leaving money on the table. It’s a must for both customer acquisition and retention.

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